


Spy

by skitzofreak



Series: the foundations we are built on [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Cassian is a spy, F/M, and the best cook in the rebellion, i have that on good authority, missing movie scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 16:40:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14958249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skitzofreak/pseuds/skitzofreak
Summary: The trip from Yavin to Jedha will take about two weeks in the U-Wing, give or take a few hours at the various fuel stops. Cassian has that long to figure out the puzzle that is Jyn Erso. Unless, of course, she kills him first.





	Spy

The trip from Yavin to Jedha will take about two weeks in the U-Wing, give or take a few hours at the various fuel stops. Cassian has that long to figure out the puzzle that is Jyn Erso.

Unless, of course, she kills him first.

In retrospect, giving a woman with nothing to lose a weapon while he’s trapped on a very small ship with her might have been a foolish move. It doesn’t help that he already knows she can hotwire a U-Wing; he’s found records indicating she’s stolen at least two (and there are burn marks on her fingers, only barely hidden by the gloves – the kind of marks a very hot wire can leave on Human skin). Kay, at least, has already plugged himself directly into the ship’s power core, so he can stay “awake” the whole time. That’s a comfort for Cassian, but not nearly as much as it normally might be. He’s seen the way Erso eyes the big droid up, not so much with fear (the way most do, even those in the Alliance). No, she looks at Kay with calculation - and a touch of familiarity. If Cassian were the kind of man to gamble with credits, he would bet his money that Erso has disabled a KX model before.

Instead, he’s just gambling his life that she won’t.

On the first day, he doesn’t get much chance to study her, because he stays mostly in the cockpit with Kay and she huddles in the small storage compartment in the far back. She leaves the door cracked open, though he catches her giving him a long, unreadable look as she pulls it mostly closed. Testing her boundaries, he decides, waiting to see if he demands that she comes back out and stays where he can see her at all times. He keeps his mouth shut but holds her eyes until she turns away first. He’ll give her that small space, but he’s not stupid and it’s safer for both of them if she knows it.

She sleeps in the small cabin that first night (if she sleeps, which he doubts), and they never say a word to one another.

The second day, however, cabin fever settles in and she’s too restless to stay in the little prison cell she’s chosen for herself. (Honestly, he’s surprised she made it so long in there, after Wobani.) Erso slinks out in the early hours of the day cycle, all her gear settled as if she expects to disembark at their destination; she even has her bag thrown over her shoulder. That confuses Cassian for a moment until he realizes that she must have checked their flight path on the small shipboard console back there, and knows they are slated to stop for fuel this evening.

Cassian eyes her bag, her gloved hand tight around the strap, and then finally her face.

“It’s a short stop,” he says at last, turning back to the small fold out stove and flipping his breakfast over in the pan. “You don’t need to get off unless you want to stretch your legs.”

A long pause, and Cassian resists the urge to glance back over his shoulder and check her expression.

“Good,” she says at last, and her bag thuds against the metal deck plating.

Cassian doesn’t smile to himself at the small victory – he was right, she was worried he would leave her at the station. Instead, he simply flips his food again.

“Considering that you spent most of the night cycle pacing in the storage compartment,” Kay pipes up from the cockpit, and Cassian winces but can’t stop him in time, “you would probably be in a better frame of mind if you exercised in the wider spaces of the port.”

Erso’s head snaps to Cassian; he can feel her staring holes in his back. “Kay has excellent hearing,” he sighs, sliding his food to the plate next to the stove. At the last moment, he stops himself from tacking a _sorry_ to the end. It’s not Kay’s fault that he can hear so well, or that he deems Erso’s behavior of significant interest to pay attention to it. It’s not Cassian’s fault that she climbed on board a spy’s (very small) ship and expected any kind of privacy beyond the bare minimum. He will not apologize.

Another long silence while Cassian dumps some of the flavored sauce he made on top of his food and Erso ponders the implications of Kay’s advanced sensors.

“What’s that?”

Her voice is close, closer than he expected, and Cassian half spins towards her in surprise, his hand raised in a defensive strike.

Erso folds her arms, looking thoroughly unimpressed with his…egg-covered spatula. Cassian clears his throat and drops his arm. “Omelet,” he says after a belated, embarrassed moment, ignoring the faint smirk hovering in the corner of her mouth. “The freeze-dried food isn’t…” he shrugs, turns back to the stove, and tries not to flinch when she shuffles a little closer to peer around his elbow at the pan. “It is not so great.”

“Never is,” she agrees, and shifts her weight, bringing her just a tiny bit closer yet. Her shoulder brushes his, and Cassian has to work hard not to twitch away (or worse, closer). Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her fingers flex a little under her folded arms, not quite as unconcerned with their proximity as she is pretending. So then, she’s doing it on purpose, once again pushing the boundaries a little to see how far she can push him. He’s a little surprised that this is how she’s chosen to do it, but then, maybe she’s just getting him used to her presence so he’ll be less likely to notice when her sticky fingers slip into his pockets again.

Cassian holds himself still as naturally as he can, and then casually shifts his weight, also pushing just a fraction closer to her in the process. To her credit, she doesn’t flinch, but her gaze flick up to his face through her eyelashes. A moment later, she turns sideways so that she’s facing him, leans her hip against the small counter attached to the stove. He considers warning her that it’s not very sturdy, then decides that she probably knows, since most of her weight is still on the balls of her feet (ready to run, even in this small space, she is still poised to run). “There are worse things,” he says at last, and tries not to make it sound like a threat.

She studies him as he cleans up the empty packets and spilled spices on the counter and stove top, and Cassian doesn’t stare back but he notes that her shoulders are still stiff and her fingers move restlessly against her coat.

“That yours?” She jerked her chin towards the little fold-out spice rack he picked up a few years ago, when he realized that the food packets and ration bars didn’t necessarily have to taste like recycled cardboard and wet socks if he had the time to put a little effort into it. It’s become something of a project for him, picking up random packets of various spices and flavorings around the galaxy when he can, trying recipes picked up from the holonet and teased out of his dim childhood memories. He’s become somewhat fond (and a little proud) of his small, neat collection of spices. He’s even learned a few tricks for turning the standard freeze-dried meal packs into something a little less revolting to a Human palate.

But he’s not going to admit any of that to _her_ , not to anyone, so instead he just shrugs and reaches to turn off the stove.

“’s nice,” she says quietly, and then seems to catch herself. Her eyes drop to the deck, her shoulders hunch slightly – she looks, he thinks with a sinking feeling, like someone bracing for a blow – and then she shoves brusquely away from the counter and back towards the rear storage space.

There’s a scar on the back of her neck, just the end of one, curling up over the loose folds of her scarf. It looks a bit like a vibroblade cut, but it’s mostly obscured and he can’t be sure. There’s also a strange stiffness to her back that he doesn’t think is entirely fear (or anger? Concern? Embarrassment? He just doesn’t know her well enough to know what she’s feeling, not yet). Abruptly, he recalls the mission report from Erso’s extraction. She had damn near escaped with the rescue team’s ship, and only been stopped when _K2SO acted against the mission commander’s orders and exited the ship, intercepting and subduing the subject in a forcible manner._ (When he asked about it, Kay simply said “I knocked her down.”)

Cassian taps his fingers on the counter, the sinking feeling in his gut growing worse. He’s never been in prison, but he knows deprivation can do…odd things to a person. It doesn’t sit particularly well with him that he is now, for all intents and purposes, the warden of her new prison. It especially doesn’t sit well that she’s clearly pushing at all her boundaries with him because she needs to know whether or not he’s the kind of man who will walk blithely right through hers. He has too much power over her, and it’s…

“Do you want this one?” He asks abruptly. She pauses, halfway through the storage compartment’s door, and turns her head to stare at him with one wary eye. Cassian steps a little to the side and points at the food on the plate. “It beats ration packs,” he adds in a carefully neutral tone.

“It’s yours,” she says, and he doesn’t think she even notices how one hand lifts and wraps itself around some kind of pendant under her shirt. Cassian hasn’t caught a good glimpse of it yet, but he knows that she broke the fingers of the soldier who tried to take it from her before she was brought in before Mothma.

Cassian reaches over and turns the stove back on. “I can make another,” he says dismissively, as if this is a normal situation for him. As if he’s used to cooking food for anyone other than himself. As if he’s used to having the chance to undo some of the damage he’s responsible for.

“Cassian’s food preparation provides the standard ration packs with a zero point seven increase in nutritional value,” Kay calls from the cockpit into the tense silence.

Their eyes meet across the cabin of the U-Wing, and he can see the humor lighting up in her eyes. She snorts, and the sound is so…normal, so relaxed, and Cassian’s own mouth curls into a small smile.

Erso tilts her head, her hand in a fist against her collarbone, and then her mouth twists into a smirk. “Alright,” she says, stepping back towards him. “For the nutritional value.”

“I’m almost certain it’s higher than that,” Cassian picks up the small metal plate and hands it to her (and neither of them react when their fingers brush underneath it). “Zero point nine, at least,” he adds through a constricted throat, though he’s proud to hear how even his voice comes out.

“Hm,” Erso says thoughtfully, and then she picks up the fork and takes a small bite. “Tastes like a point eight to me,” she murmurs. Her face is still wary, her movements careful, but she stays within arm’s reach and her shoulders are no longer hunched. Cassian decides that it counts as a victory (of what, he’s not entirely sure, but it still feels like a win and he’s not in the mood to examine it too close).

“Nutritional value,” Kay says snippily as Cassian turns back to the stove and reaches for another meal packet, “cannot be detected by the Human gustatory system.”

“Sure about that?” Jyn takes another bite, leaning against the counter next to him again. “Because mine can.”

“Highly unlikely.”

She hums again, licking some sauce from her lower lip, and purses her mouth thoughtfully. “That so?”

“I wouldn’t pick fights with him,” Cassian says, and regrets the gravity in his tone when she stills, her hand tightening on the fork. He drops his voice to a mock whisper, “He doesn’t know how to lose.”

“My calculations are based on creditable sources and sound mathematics,” Kay responds, glaring at them both over his shoulder with glowing white optics. “There is rarely a need for me to update my conclusions based on random anecdotes from thieves and established liars.”

Erso glances at him, and Cassian sighs and pours in the mix for his omelet. “I told him I was alright with you using my ident badge,” he tells her.

“So he means well,” she parrots his own words back at him, her chin raised in challenge.

Cassian grunts. “He really does.”

Her hand relaxes, and she eats another bite with obvious relish (and he’s  _not_ pleased about that. Why should he be? He knows it’s better than the ration bars. He doesn't need her confirmation). “Grace in defeat,” she says meditatively, “is an important life lesson.”

“Droids do not have life lessons. We upgrade.”

She opens her mouth to retaliate, but Cassian is quicker, holding up the pan of sauce. “More?”

She blinks, derailed, and for a moment he thinks she’s going to snarl at him until her eyes drop back to the plate where she still has about half an omelet. Silently, she holds out the plate, and Cassian dumps a good half of the pan onto it. Her brow wrinkles in confusion, and so does her nose, just a little…and, oh, shit, it’s…cute. Adorable, actually.

That’s…a problem.

Cassian sets the pot back down on the stove top just a little too hard and looks back at the food he’s cooking (nearly burning, as a matter of fact, _pay attention, fool_ ). “You could use the nutritional value,” he tries to joke it off, but it sounds too stiff and just a little judgmental. He keeps his face blank and focuses on flipping the omelet, certain that he’s screwed up this small connection already.

To his intense relief, however, all she says is, “So could you,” and then the steady scrape of her fork on the plate fills the silence.

Well, she’s not wrong there, he supposes.

The ship falls silent again, save for the rumble of the hyperdrive, the sizzle of the food in the pan, and the scrape of Erso’s fork.

“’s good,” she mumbles around her last mouthful at last. “Thanks.”

He nods, not trusting himself enough to look at her directly. To his continued surprise, she cleans her own plate in the small sonic box next to the stove, and shoves her dishes back into the storage compartment. The compartment is directly over the stove, so the move brings her close to his side again, and Cassian has to lean back slightly to let her reach in front of his face for the storage door. This time, however, it doesn’t feel like a test of his boundaries.

It feels…well, he leans back and she leans over and then she turns and walks across the small cabin, settling into the seat behind him while he flips his food onto his own plate and turns around to eat with his back against the wall. She keeps her face turned towards the viewport, watching the starlines streak by with the glazed look of someone staring into a fire or a fountain, and he keeps his attention mostly on his plate. Kay doesn’t speak up again, and so silence reigns inside the U-Wing.

But it feels comfortable, all the same.

Cassian swallows his food down and tries not to think about how that happened, or why, or what it could mean for the future. He has, after all, two weeks to figure Jyn Erso out before they get to Jedha – and he has no idea what he’s going to find behind that watchful expression (that’s a lie, he has an idea, and it both terrifies and exhilarates him).

Cassian eats his food and watches her watch the stars, and decides that he has pushed far enough for now. He has two weeks, and there’s not much else to do on this ship but talk to him and Kay. She will come to him, when she’s ready. Cassian has been a spy a long time, and he’s always been a patient person. More importantly, this whole incident has already taught him that he will have a better chance of learning who she is and how she works if _she_ initiates the conversation. He can wait for her to start pushing against the boundaries again, giving him the chance to push right back (or let her in, and see what she does…but that’s the more dangerous route, and he really, really shouldn’t try it). Either way, he can wait.

He can wait.


End file.
